Horton Plains, Sri Lanka explored in new book

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June 15, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s Horton Plains, a small 30 square kilometer national park with beautiful scenery is a rich reserve of hundreds of endemic plants, animals and birds, that are not always visible to the untrained eye. A new book ‘Horton Plains’ edited by Rohan Pethiyagoda, a Sri Lankan scientist currently in Australia, aims to bring out the rich biological heritage uncovered in the area by researchers over the years.

Horton Plains is part of a UN declared Central Highland World Heritage site and is Sri Lanka’s most visited national park. Most people visit the plains for its beautiful scenic spots including the World’s End cliff and Baker’s Falls.

But there is more to it than meets the eye, which the book aims to show.

“It is really a fantastic piece of forest and landscape in Sri Lanka because there are so many endemic animals and flowers and plants,” says Pethiyagoda, a researcher who had himself discovered a described a numerous new species.

“That is it a really special place. To that you then add, the fact that there is all this history to it. Stone Age people lived three 18,000 years ago. There are stone tools, they had herded cattle there.”

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